Survey: More S. Korean Students Have Favorable Views of N. Korea

The number of South Korean students who view North Korea as an enemy has drastically fallen.

The Unification Ministry on Tuesday announced the outcome of a survey conducted on around 83-thousand students at 597 elementary, middle and high schools across the country between October and December.

Asked how they view the North, only five-point-two percent said it is an enemy of the South compared with 41 percent a year earlier.

The portion of students who chose to see North Korea as a partner to cooperate with rose from 41 percent to 51 percent while more than 12 percent said the North is a country to help, up from ten-point-eight percent. Some 28 percent said the communist regime needs to be guarded against.

Those linking the North with the image of a dictatorship or dictators also sharply dropped from 49 percent to 27 percent.

The survey had a 95 percent confidence level with a margin of error of plus or minus zero-point-34 percentage points.